Change in the way Opus Dei does its “chats”
In a comment in a recent post, there was a report that 1.5 years ago, as part of the Statutes revision, there was a change to the regulations about supernumerary chats. It seems from the reasoning behind this that the same change was probably made for Saint Michael work as well (?). Can anyone confirm.
This is a significant change which fundamentally destroys the initial purpose of the chat.
So it is a major reform, at least on paper.
It means that all the exes who have written to the Vatican about the chat as an abuse have succeeded in changing something.
The change is: as of 1.5 years ago, the local council cannot receive the chats of the supernumeraries they govern. The chats have to be heard by some other numerary (or associate).
Background Context: the Vatican has been trying since at least 2010 to make Opus Dei separate the governance from the spiritual direction/chat (because of the canons about manifestations of conscience in the Code of Canon Law, and the theological principles behind those; and because members and ex-members have kept writing to the Vatican saying that it is still going on).
This report is from France.
Can anyone add info from other regions and from sm work?
Particularly with the Numeraries, the original purpose of the chat as set up by JME was to garner personal information that he could then *use* to make decisions about governance/staffing. So this would be major if that is no longer being done.
I have not seen this reported on Opuslibros or by anyone else on here, so I’m wondering if it’s a change that only was made for the supernumeraries (a Vatican-facing superficial change) …
but the fact that it was explained internally to current members as being required by Opus Dei’s revision of the Statutes implies that it is across the board for all member types.
ETA: Someone has confirmed in a sub-comment here that in Brazil Numeraries who are the director of a center of numerary assistants and also are administrators (the work supervisors of the nunerary assistants) are no longer allowed to hear the chats of the numerary assistants of that center / whom they supervise.
Still waiting for information about other member-types (Numeraries and associates, and their local councils).
ETA#2. In another sub-comment a current numerary in Spain says supernumeraries are still doing chats with their local council members. It appears that perhaps the new regulation of 1.5 years ago is being carried out in some places but not others. Or perhaps that globally it started being implemented 1.5 years ago but then that stopped because the Statutes were not ratified by Francis before he died and recently Leo has said he’s still studying the proposed Statutes.